A Hidden, Personal Thing
by V Tsuion
Summary: "I've never used it on a human, Doctor… It's a hidden, personal thing to the Vulcan people, part of our private lives." But for Captain Kirk, he would do anything - within the bounds of logic, of course.


A mind meld was a private, very personal thing to a Vulcan. It was the sharing of all thoughts and sensations, and even the melding of identity. Between Vulcans it was an intimate rite. With humans who had such disorderly, emotional minds, it was dangerous. There was only one human who Spock had ever considered mind melding with, with whom he knew it would not be dangerous; his captain, James Kirk. He did not intend to meld with any others. But it was in order to save his captain that Spock mind melded with another human first. It was not a complete meld, but their minds touched all the same.

Spock felt the outpouring of emotion through a haze of pain. Dr. Gelder's mind latched onto his with remarkable force. Even when Spock siphoned off the pain and compartmentalized it, there was still an empty aching he could not overcome with his enhanced tolerance for pain. It yearned for Spock's mind to fill it with thoughts and make it whole again. That was how it had so easily accepted Dr. Adam's suggestions. It took all of his willpower to keep their minds joined, but distinct as he tapped into Dr. Gelder's own mind below all of the interference.

Kirk had suffered the same fate. Not for such an extended period of time, but there was still damage. Spock could help him recover as he had done for Dr. Gelder, but it was not something to be done lightly.

* * *

Jim was in sickbay to confirm that he was actually as fine as he claimed to be after the mental assault. Once Bones had shooed out the hovering Mr. Spock, he warned Jim, "It sounded about as intimate as Vulcans get, strange as it was. Spock said he'd never done it to a human before, but, well, it's not my job to speculate on your love life."

Jim made to protest, but Bones gave him a look and he reconsidered.

Jim wasn't terribly surprised when he heard a knock on the door to his room at the end of Spock's shift that evening. He would probably have expected it anyway - Spock usually checked in on him after he was injured, not that Jim minded. Thanks to Bones's warning, he was also less surprised by how nervous Spock looked. It was a subtle change, but to Jim it was obvious that his First Officer was stiffer than usual.

"You have recovered?" Spock asked, his voice stilted and awkward.

Jim answered with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, "I'm doing fine. Come on in."

Spock stepped into the room and let the door close behind him, but remained standing not far away, as though he was ready to flee at any moment. Jim invited Spock to sit next to him on the foot of the bed and make himself comfortable, but to no avail. He didn't really expect it to work, but it was worth a shot.

"So, what is it?" Jim asked when Spock remained silent.

Spock hesitated. Jim could not help but admire Spock's courage in confronting him so directly with what was clearly such a personal matter. Jim had been content to just let his little gestures, each of which was innocuous in its own right, do the talking and enjoy things as they were. He hadn't wanted to risk scaring Spock away, but here Spock had come to him of his own volition.

"I am here to report on the treatment of Dr. Gelder," Spock began on neutral ground.

Jim let the unusual context slide for the time being and said with a smile, "Report away."

Spock hesitated again, but more quickly found his words, "Despite Dr. McCoy's efforts, he had no success communicating with Dr. Gelder through conventional means. At his insistence, I used an ancient Vulcan technique which enabled me to combine my mind with Dr. Gelder's and aid in his recovery."

Then, he paused and his speech became more reluctant, "I could also do the same for you." Beat. He chose his next words carefully, "But it is not something to be done lightly, and I do not intend to overstep the bounds of our professional relationship."

The number of things Spock wasn't saying was incredible, even more so than usual. Jim couldn't help but laugh. He wondered to what extent Spock realized what he was saying, or at least how it came across to an illogical human such as himself. Well, Jim wasn't going to be the one to tell him, he would let Spock figure that out in his own time.

Instead, Jim answered, with a half-joking word of caution just in case, "I would be honored, though I don't want you to feel like you have to just because I was foolish enough to poke around Dr. Adam's neural neutralizer."

"Your concern is unwarranted. You are aware that I am not capable of such 'feelings,'" Spock replied as he usually did whenever Jim mentioned Spock feeling anything, even when he didn't mean it literally.

Jim's grin faded and they both hesitated, watching each other as though from opposite sides of a chasm, waiting for the other to take to take the leap. It looked like Spock hadn't entirely expected to get this far, and didn't know quite how to begin now that he had.

"Is there anything I should do?" Jim prompted.

Spock quickly got over it and stepped towards Jim. "I advise that you make yourself comfortable. There is some danger, as the procedure requires that I change the pressure in your nerves and blood vessels."

"What's life without a little danger," Jim teased.

Spock gave him a look as though he suspected Jim actually did hold such a philosophy and would rather he didn't.

After a moment's consideration, Spock sat down a tad reluctantly on the bed next to Jim and turned to face him. He raised his hands to Jim's face with his fingers splayed. Jim sat as still as he could as not to disturb Spock, though his heart raced in anticipation of whatever was to come.

The impact was immediate. Jim felt nothing beyond the gentle pressure of Spock's warm fingertips scattered across his face, but he could see Spock's eyes widen and a range of emotions threatened to cross his face, even as he schooled them all under control. For Spock, it was as though for all his life he had only seen in black and white, with perhaps a few faint touches of muted color here and there, and then, as his hands touched the captain's face, his world exploded into full emotional color.

But it was okay, because these were not his own emotions, but the captain's - Jim's. This was why it was dangerous to mind meld with a human. It was as though he was submerged in Jim's smile, but more powerful and nuanced with emotions he could only later name as concern and affection. He flitted from one thing to another, tossed to and fro by waves of untamed and disorganized emotion.

He had felt it some before with Dr. Gelder, but then it had all been clouded out by anguish and pain. Jim's mind, however, was bright and clear. It molded itself to him and beckoned him deeper. He could feel some of the emptiness that had been present in Dr. Gelder's mind, but it was more subtle, and in that it was more insidious. If he was not careful, he would not be able to leave the meld.

Still, Spock recited, "You begin to feel a strange euphoria. Your body floats."

Jim felt it. The euphoria was probably already there, but it grew, like a bubble of laughter threatening to burst out of his chest, and Jim could feel himself floating, as though he was lingering on the edge of sleep. His eyes were closed, though he did not quite remember closing them.

"Open your mind. We move together. Our minds sharing the same thoughts."

If that didn't sound intimate, Jim didn't know what did. That was the last independent thought he was aware of as their minds crashed together.

Emotions burst like fireworks and seeped in around the edges. Memories and thoughts danced across their mind, at once ordered and disordered. They were too deep for words, but an internal conversation passed in a stream of consciousness of sights and sounds and smells and feelings, connected by shared emotions and concepts alike. Old memories were discovered for the first time, and new thoughts formed as though they had always been there. And after it was over, Spock found his memories tinted with alien emotion, and Jim found his sorted into logical Vulcan categories.

They burrowed deeper and deeper, from the moment they had left behind in their room, to simple thoughts and easy memories, to the long forgotten past and feelings kept locked away under many layers of practiced thought. Logic and illogic swirled together until there was nothing to distinguish them. Truth and imaginings were one in the same. The gaping emptiness was filled. They were finally whole. They could remain this way forever, lost in a sea of thoughts and emotions.

 _But then I would never see you again._

That thought, though it was felt without words, was the only buoy keeping them afloat. If their minds remained together, the independent entities that made them up would be lost. Never again would there be Jim's smile, the quirk of Spock's eyebrow, a wry joke, a shared glance, a daring rescue, even a game of chess. They could not remain as one. They had to be two.

Even then, it took all the strength they had to pull out from the depths of their minds and become Spock and Jim again. Spock's hands slowly drifted away from Jim's face. They were both breathing heavily, their eyes a little wild, and their cheeks flushed with red and green blood respectively. They stared into each others' eyes as they remembered that they were separate and what it had been like to be one in the same.

Spock was the first to return to himself completely, though it was nothing like any mind meld he had experienced before. "Jim, are you unharmed?" he asked, his voice soft.

Jim nodded a little stiffly and belatedly. For once, he found himself at a loss for words.

"You are certain?" Spock confirmed.

"Yeah," Jim managed to say, still a little breathless. "Wow. I don't know what I was expecting, but that was… Wow." He grinned. For a moment it was as though he had almost forgotten how, but the familiar expression soon returned. Spock's mind was more incredible than he could have possibly imagined. That, at least, he had expected.

Spock hesitated. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully, "I had some difficulty assessing the damage and was unable to repair it as I had done with Dr. Gelder. Your mind was more powerful than I expected. Your emotions are much stronger than I am accustomed to and the neural neutralizer made your mind particularly open to the mind meld. I was not able keep our minds sufficiently separate for analysis."

"Well, we'll just have to try again then, won't we, Mr. Spock?" Jim said with a wry grin that clearly indicated he was up to no good.

His conclusion however, was perfectly logical and Spock assented, "Certainly."

"You're more than welcome to try as many times as you like," Jim said, sounding particularly satisfied with himself.

The edges of Spock's mouth twitched upwards in what, as far as Jim was concerned, counted as a wide grin.


End file.
